Jun 28 (1 Kings 20-21) Ahab is identified as a king who “did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him” (1 Kgs. 16:33). Despite this discouraging fact, God gave him opportunities to be a king who would follow the Lord’s ways. When the king of Aram (Syria) came against him, God sent a prophet to tell Ahab: “Thus says the LORD, ‘Have you seen all this great multitude? Behold, I will deliver them into your hand today, and you shall know that I am the LORD’” (20:13). We know from our readings that Ahab never did recognize the supremacy of God, and that he never was a servant of the Lord. When the Arameans came against them the following year, “the sons of Israel camped before them like two little flocks of goats, but the Arameans filled the country” (20:27). Again, God gave Ahab a total victory. Ahab showed his disregard for God’s plans when he allowed the king of Aram to go free, thereby bringing God’s rejection over him and his kingdom.
The story of Naboth’s vineyard reveals the complete godless nature of Ahab’s character. He showed his weakness as a king, as a husband, even as a person, by allowing Naboth to be killed so that he could have his vineyard. God responded by sending Elijah to Ahab to announce his fate and that of Jezebel. There is a parenthetical summation in 1 Kings 21:25, NIV: “(There was never anyone like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the LORD, urged on by Jezebel his wife).”
The Bible is honest about the realities of evil, but the Bible in its entirety shows that God always triumphs over evil. “Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God” (3 Jn. 11).
– Al Gary
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